In 1878, an acre of land (Lot 29) on Ōpōtiki’s Church Street, was granted to the recently formed Ōpōtiki Mechanics Institute.
In the manner of many similar organisations throughout the British Empire, the Ōpōtiki Mechanics Institute had been founded by a small group of local gentlemen who formally recorded the Institute’s purpose as ‘the promotion of useful knowledge among the inhabitants of the district’. Post industrial revolution, manual employment was increasingly in factories, operating machinery – hence ‘mechanic’. The mechanics institute provided a reading room, a lending library and a venue for lectures and adult education.
To this end, a community hub and library has been on the corner of King and Church Streets – albeit involving additions, alterations, and rebuilding – ever since.
